Once upon a time, you only went to the dentist’s office to ensure that your teeth and gums stay healthy for life and your smile looks great. But our office has evolved. Now, in addition to numerous cosmetic dental procedures, our practice also offers facial rejuvenation, including microneedling with PRP therapy.
Sargon Lazarof, DDS, founded Sargon Dental to offer cutting-edge dental therapies for women and men. In keeping with his philosophy of innovation, he’s partnered with Mitra Tahvildarian, PhD, CFMP, AGNP — a functional medicine specialist known to her patients as Dr. T — at the Sargon Dental offices in Encino and West Hollywood, California, to offer facial rejuvenation, too.
The best you starts with you
PRP (platelet-rich-plasma) therapy uses a power-packed serum that’s created from your own blood. Dr. T and her staff begin by gently withdrawing a tube of blood from your arm, as if you were giving blood for a test.
They place the tube in a specially designed sterile centrifuge, which spins your blood to separate out liquid (plasma) and solids (red and white blood cells and platelets). A further spin isolates the platelets from other solids.
Dr. T then mixes the platelets — which your body uses to coagulate wounds and rebuild tissue — into a small amount of your plasma. The resulting serum is chock-full of the ingredients that your body uses to create healthy new tissue, including skin cells.
Microneedling prepares your skin
Before Dr. T applies the PRP, she first prepares your skin with a microneedling treatment. She passes a single-use microneedling device, fitted with dozens of tiny needles, over your skin. The needles create hair-thin, cylindrical channels — miniature wounds — in your skin so the PRP can better access your deeper dermal layers.
Microneedling also triggers your own body’s healing efforts. Platelets speed to the wound channels to begin the clean-up and rebuilding chores, and extra blood flow helps wash away toxins, bacteria, and old, damaged skin cells and proteins. Your body starts to build more blood vessels around the wound channels to flood the area with oxygen and nutrients.
Adding PRP boosts the healing process
Microneedling starts your skin on its healing and rebuilding journey, but adding your PRP serum gives it the extra supplies it needs to create healthy new skin. Combining microneedling and PRP is like giving soldiers extra supplies so they’re nourished and replenished and grow stronger than ever.
When you wound the skin in a controlled manner, as microneedling does, part of the rebuilding process is called neocollagenesis, which refers to the creation of new collagen. Collagen is the long-strand protein that keeps your skin firm and flexible.
As you age, your collagen becomes damaged and broken — particularly if you expose your skin to the sun’s ultraviolet rays. You also produce less collagen as you get older, which means you can’t as easily replenish old strands with new ones. That leaves you with a collagen deficit.
However, microneedling with PRP boosts collagen production. In the weeks and months following your treatment, strong new strands of collagen and its companion protein, elastin, work to reconstruct your skin from the inner layers out. The result? Beautiful, firmer, tighter skin that gives you a more youthful look.
If you desire, Dr. T can inject PRP directly into areas of concern. Injected PRP in the facial region is sometimes referred to as a vampire facelift.
Not what you’d expect at the dentist’s office
Your fresh new skin can give you a whole new outlook on life — and how other people see you, too. Neocollagenesis spurred by microneedling with PRP diminishes and improves:
And you don’t have to limit yourself to facial treatments. Dr. T can treat your neck and stretch marks, too. Most patients see the best results after having a few treatments, and touch-ups can help you maintain those amazing results for years.
Give yourself an extra reason to smile with your visit to the dentist’s office. Contact us about microneedling with PRP today. Call our friendly Sargon Dental office staff, or request an appointment online.
